This Was Beautiful
by evm
Summary: Modern day version of Othello. Sometimes Charity wants to burst out of her burning pale skin so she can melt into the night, into Oliver’s dark hands and narrow limbs, the ebony eyelashes that lie so softly against the perfect curve of his smooth cheek.
1. This is the BEGINNING

- - - - (author blurt): Fanfiction based (very) loosely on the characters in Othello. Set in modern times. Copyright belongs to the great Will (please forgive my meddling about in your wonderful play, though you are dead and cannot excuse me).

(side note): This is artsy-shmartzy and full of melodrama. If you are offended by either of these two concepts, please do not proceed to read. I'm human, and flames affect me (no false bravado here).

'this was beautiful'

part i: private madness

Sometimes she wants to burst out of her burning pale skin so she can melt into the night, into Oliver's dark hands and narrow limbs- his ebony eyelashes that lie so softly against the perfect curve of his smooth cheek. Sometimes, Charity wants to be anyone but herself. Ian understands. Sometimes Ian wants to be someone else too, to get away- make it all go away. Sometimes he wants it so bad he can taste it, the bitter rot that rises in his throat clenching all the muscles so that each breath he draws is a labor. Ian understands very well. But Cass knows better. Cass knows (because he always knows) all about Charity's delirium and Ian's raging claustrophobia. Cass is sure that he would indulge in his own private midnight madness, if he weren't already so caught up in their chaos already. These days his head is always spinning, and he gets so dizzy and short of breath- feeling like there are electrical storms inside his head, only, he's quite forgotten all about them now. Oliver frets about Cass. But he doesn't know what to do; Cass tells him lots of words, but they never make much sense (all in nonsense). Cass talks to Charity though, in straight lines and pieces of other (dead) people's words. Sometimes Oliver wants to reach through to Cass so bad that he wishes he could just jump inside Charity's skin.

part ii: charity, ian & cass

Charity met Ian when they were little. Charity was coming home after swimming and she smelled like chlorine and sun block and sun. Ian just smelled like fear. He was holding a dead kitten, he'd snapped it's neck and he was crying and crying and when charity asked him why he was crying he said it was because he couldn't put it back- the kitten was broken and he didn't know why he did it and he was real scared and he just wanted the kitten to get warm again. Charity gave him a hug and she didn't even wrinkle her nose at the dead smell and told him that they were going to have a funeral for the kitten. They buried it in Cass's back yard but Cass wasn't very sure about it. Ghosts, he explained, wouldn't like a dead kitty in their yard. Charity said they probably wouldn't mind another member of the family. Then Charity, Cass, and Ian went for milk shakes at the soda fountain, and Charity said the ghosts wouldn't mind this either, because they liked to watch live people living out their lives.

(to be continued)

(end note): For your reading convenience:

Oliver is Othello just like Charity resembles Desdemona as Cass might be Cassio and Ian is certainly Iago.


	2. This is QUIET DESPERATION

Part iv: Cookies for Oliver and Cass

Charity pauses for a minute while she's adding the flour to the cookies she's making. She's making chocolate-oatmeal-pecan-cranberry for the first day of school so that they will all have something sweet in their lunch-boxes. (Cass's mother only packs him stringy celery and sandwiches sans mayonnaise). When she stops and closes her eyes she can smell the pungent scent of the cardamon she's using in the cookies as it fills the room. It smells like the time she and Oliver and Cass were curled on the couch together in a lazy tangle of arms and legs, watching Amelie on the television set. Her face was pressed against the palm of Oliver's hand, and she could feel every line and crease. That was what Oliver had smelled like- cardamon and sawdust. He had said it was because his mother cooked with it a lot- not just in cookies and pastries like Charity, but in soups and sauces and chicken too. Now charity uses it all the time too, so that she will smell like Oliver. Cass thinks she is being very silly, but then, he has his own special scent, just like the air right after a storm has passed.

Part v: Oliver at School

Oliver does not do very well in school. Numbers and letters confuse him and make his stomach do flip-flops and butterflies. He does not get good marks on tests and projects and it takes all of Charity's effort to get him to turn in his homework. When he does, it is all folded and crumpled (and sometimes wet and muddy) and he usually only gets half the score. The only reason he still pays attention and does any of the work is so that he can make the grade and stay with Charity and Cass. Charity and Cass do not have any problems at school. Charity spends most of her time dreaming and drawing pictures of birds and flowers and crooked hearts in all the margins of her blue-lined notebooks, but she still pulls off full marks on tests and gets smiley faces and nice comments. Oliver asked Cass once how he managed to do so well in school, and he said that it was because there were two of him; Cass-at-home and Cass-at-school. Cass-at-home spent all his time thinking about clocks and gears and airplanes, and Cass-at-school concentrated and did what the teachers told him to.

Part vi: Ian all Alone

Ian sits in a corner, melting into shadows and light carelessly like some slinky jungle cat. Ian is alone -sitting there- but it is OK because he has been alone before, like in elementary school. In elementary school one day, while he was drinking his juice box and coloring in pictures of the sky with a red crayon (because it reminded him of pain) Oliver sat down beside him and asked if he could use the red crayon. Ian said 'no,' rather rudely because he was startled by Oliver's fast movements and big smile, and besides, it was his crayon, he'd brought it from home, and he liked it. Oliver would probably use it all up coloring something stupid like a fire truck or some strawberries. When Ian said no, Oliver's eyes got dark and wet and he yelled rather loudly that he didn't care anyway, it was just a dumb crayon and Ian was stupid and his nose was too big besides. Someone laughed at the wrong time, and then everyone was laughing except Ian, and they called him big-nose and witchy boy and they never stopped, not even for high school. If Ian were a real witch, the first thing he would do would be to put a curse on Oliver and never ever take it back, even if Charity asked him to.

Part vii: Ian and Evy Ian

isn't alone all the time. Sometimes Evy is there with him in the still light. Ian says that Evy is his girlfriend, and Evy never disagrees. She lives in black and white, an old-fashioned photograph girl dressed in faded lace and soft skirts. When she speaks, her tiny words get caught in the wind and drift into places where they shouldn't go, like into Ian's ears and star-cold mind. (He doesn't like to be disturbed). He says sharp hissy words then, and Evy takes care not to speak for a while; staring blankly into the bright concrete oblivion thinking pale thoughts that fade away like smoke on the wind. When she thinks that she is going to cry she scrunches up her face and curls her toes, remembering all the times that he's kissed her and placing them like a brick wall before the empty abyss of her insecurity.

Cass kissed her once. He listened to her startled birdy words solemnly and then reached on tiptoe to press gentle lips to the top of her forehead. Evy felt electric and gorgeous and IMPORTANT then, and she danced the day away. Evy doesn't ever dare dance in front of Ian.


	3. This is POISON

**(author blurt)** :

Well, I wasn't going to admit this straight out, because this is a rather scholarly and well-read fandom (for obvious reasons), but yes, I wrote this last year while I was reading _Othello_ and _Dangerous Angels_ at the same time. Looking back on it now, I'm very glad that I did, because it helped expand into a different style of writing that I had never tried before. And my thanks to everyone who has reviewed this, the comments do mean a lot to me. And I do have many things in mind that I would like to edit, but I don't currently have the time to commit. Maybe after I'm done with applications (which should be hopefully next week::performs an excited dance::) I will really sit down and work on it. The chapters I'm posting now were written a while ago, though on the advice of Freya Sacksen I'm posting them one at a time. Anyway. Enough of that.

**Part viii: The Way Things Happen**

It happens when Oliver is standing under the pink oleander bush watching Charity sitting on the staircase in front of the school, filtering sunlight into her veins. Ian silently appears between one second and the next, like a ghost of all the things Oliver is trying not to think of. Oliver thinks that Ian looks like a butterfly standing there, a monarch boy; milkweed pale and so deadly poisonous (sick). He imagines that if he could only stop from blinking he would be able to catch the ephemeral flutter of Ian's velvet wings- but he can't stop, and it's through the soft haze of his midnight lashes that he watches Ian's outstretched palm. Ian doesn't say anything, he doesn't need to; his intentions are caught up and carried on the warm September wind and wander so gently into Oliver's mind. _Come, come with me_, speaks Ian's heart-shaped palm, _for I am not what I am, and can show you a world un-veiled._ Maybe it is his frustration over the absence of Ian's misplaced wings, but mostly it is his fear of Ian's twisted oracle sight that stops him from going with the poisonous boy. He shakes his head slowly, regretting all the things that he will never see with Ian and at the same time shivering in relief. Ever silent, Ian only smiles with one side of his lovely mouth and as he retreats, the dusty oleander scented air, whispers to Oliver that Ian will be back for him. Releasing pent breath, Oliver turns back to Charity and all the brightest things. Somewhere Cass slowly turns the page of a yellowed book, crossing his eyes until the small text blurs and is born again as flowers and shadows and sailing ship clouds.

- - - - - - - (author blurt part two): 'I am not what I am' taken directly from Shakespeare's text, though I am warping it to mean something entirely different, as my portrayal of Iago radically differs. Also, I'm kind of considering leaving this in favor of working on a more conventional (well at least stylistically) piece that follows the plot of _Much Ado About Nothing. _Any thoughts on the matter? I haven't been sure whether to post it here, or on Fictionpress (because of the fact that it is definitely pretty loosely based).


	4. This is the UNWITTING FAREWELL

**((author blurt)): **So, I broke my own rule again, and posted two parts together. But the second is really short, and they go together very closely. From now on, the pieces are sequential and should start to make more sense. Thank you so much for sticking with this Freya Sacksen, you're my only constant reviewer, and I want you to know that I really appreciate it. I haven't forgotten about your Shakespeare fic, and now that I've finished college apps (hooray!) hopefully I will now have more time to sit and read.

**Part ix:**

It's raining when he comes again, perching on Oliver's windowsill like a coiled panther. Oliver doesn't see him at first through the panes of glass streaming with storm water- it is only after the first brilliant streak of lightening rends the sky and outlines Ian's spindly form from behind with witch-light brilliance that Oliver notices him. Hesitantly, Oliver places one hand against the glass, and then the other, as Ian's hand rises to meet his palm. Oliver is still not entirely convinced that Ian is there at all; maybe he was born from the midnight- an extension of the humid air and the all-alone sound of the rain hitting the pavement. Or maybe he is a moon-child, with dying stars for eyes and the palest of comet trails for his slender arms.

But after Ian's breath fogs the glass so that Oliver can no longer see his solemn face, Oliver heaves a long sigh and decides that Ian is real after all – just a boy of flesh and blood and so many problems. Slowly, he pushes the windowpane up.

Ian smiles, and Oliver feels like his soul has just been signed away.

'The night was made for us' whispers Ian directly into Oliver's ear as he leans forward into Oliver's room. 'See how it turns and turns around us as we stand so still? See how the stars burn and burn just for you, and the moon crowns you with all the colors of her frigid halo?"

Water drips from the long strands of Ian's soaking hair and streams down Oliver's cheeks as Ian clings to Oliver's shoulders and swings himself off the ledge and onto the floor.

'Nothing, nothing, lasts for ever (except for you and me, love).' Ian murmurs and then laughs and laughs as Oliver shivers in his arms. And his laughter carries on the night wind (turned suddenly so cold) all the way from Oliver's ears to inside Charity's haphazard dreams, so that everything turns dark and wild.

When she wakes in the morning, her cheeks are wet.

**Part x: **

The morning after is fresh and clear and it smells like clouds and wind and the brilliant blue of the sky. Cass wades into it slowly, testing the air cautiously with the tip of his tongue.

'What do you taste_?' _Charity asks him.

'Cinnamon. And cold macadam'he says, and then: 'witch-craft.'

Instead of laughing at him, Charity reaches out and takes his hand tightly in hers, because Charity can feel it too.

**((Ending blurt of useless info)) : **When I was first writing this, it was at this point that I decided to work in pieces of all the literature we read in my Honors English class, so from here on there are some _Hamlet_ references, and a lot of _Crucible_ references (hence the witchcraft, which I found convenient because of the earlier description of the elementary kids calling Ian 'witch-boy'.)

Oh, and just for fun: the reason that I decided that Ian's nose is big and he gets called witch-boy is because my own brother has a definite roman nose (his name is Ian as well, which is actually just coincidence, because it was the name closest to Iago that I could find, and still liked.) I don't think that my mom would be amused to read this fic and find that I'd used my brother's name…..


	5. This is PROPHETIC

**Part xi: **

When Charity watches Oliver run at his track meet, she wishes she could be the wind that slides through his long fingers and rumples the fabric of his jersey. Cass stands beside her and closes his eyes against the bright sun and the burning traces of displaced air that stream behind Oliver's lithe form. But even as they cheer for him- Charity yelling at the top of her lungs, Cass chiming in with his stifled whisper- their good intentions die on contact with air, muted under the apathetic blue of the October sky.

Then, suddenly, Ian is there, as silent as he always stays, steeling into the wake of Charity's shadow so that she shivers and crosses her arms even in that golden weather.

She turns on him, and her perfect brow furrows in an antithetical display of morbid curiosity and half-founded accusation.

'Why?'she asks him, wonderingly hesitant about what she will find scattered amongst his broken-star words.

But Ian still stands on the brink of his battlements of silence; poised as the dancer on the verge of brilliance, he revels in his tangled web of insinuation.

'Him.'he finally says with his cutting voice. 'I have him.'

'No!'cries Charity, wanting to disbelieve what she fears to be true and failing. She grasps Cass's hand for support, all of her curiosity banished as suddenly as it began. 'You can't have him! We will always be there alongside him, no matter where he goes!'

Cass squints against the glare of the sun, focusing all the intensity of his colorless eyes into the bottomless pits of Ian's.

'You can't take him without us.' says Cass quietly, and it comes out as a prophecy.

Ian knows that what Cass is says is truth- the words of prophets speaking through a faded boy who holds death inside his skin and chaos inside his head like the closest of companions. He spits on the ground, and when he stalks away the dust won't settle in his wake.

**((author blurt)): **I broke my own resolution to post these far apart simply because I'm anxious to get finished. Oh well. Hope no one is too annoyed…


	6. This is UNINTENTIONAL SUICIDE

**Part xii: **

And the hunger stalks inside her paper skin like a wild beast; it rips her all to shreds so she feels as if her throbbing heart is exposed for all the world to mock, rubbed raw from Ian's terrifying silences. But still she does not eat. To eat would be to give in, to let the world win and bury her with all the oppressive weight of obscurity. But oh, how beautiful it is (!) when she resists the overwhelming urges of her body- she feels as if she is floating high above everything, so gorgeously pure and hollow. Evy feels divine then, like a whisper of smoke silhouetted against the moon, a word spoken softly in the dark from one lover to another…a first kiss.

Cass knows that Evy is too skinny.

'Evy,' he says, 'you are almost not there- when you turn sideways I can see the sky through you.'

Evy only shrugs her shoulders in response, and will not eat the wedge of tangerine that Cass offers her. Cass's face closes off then, and all the weight of Evy's unintentional suicide bears down on him so that the only thing left inside his head is humming static.

Later, when Charity take his hand, he only stares at her uncomprehendingly with blank rain-water eyes.

**((author blurt)): **As always, much love to Freya. Oh, and I lied. I still manage to break off on a few tangents here and there, like this….

Also, randomly, my sister just showed me a cartoon doodle she'd drawn of Shakespeare labeled as "The Great Shake'n'Bake." I don't know why it was quite that funny, but it made me crack up.


	7. This is INTOXICATING

**Part xiv:**

When Ian arrives out of the night for the second time, smelling of stardust and frozen pavement, Oliver accepts his offered hand without hesitation, and allows Ian to lead him blindly away into the darkness. Ian leads him down many twisted streets, to a large house nestled among a forest of stunted oaks. The door is open and music and light spill out in an intoxicating jumble of bass beat and color, creating a path down the concrete walk that Ian guides Oliver down with a hand on his back. Inside, is a different world.

For a while Oliver feels more alive than he has ever felt before, immersed in the pounding beat pumping from the speakers, the feel of sweat and glitter and skin and hair closing in protectively around him. Then Ian hands him something in a red plastic cup. He knows that he shouldn't drink it, knows what it was by the way it smells and burns all the way down his throat. Ian hands him another one, but when Oliver shakes his head in refusal, Ian hangs his head and looks up at Oliver through his dark lashes before turning around and slowly walking away. He doesn't come back for a long while, and despite the lights and the glitter and hundreds of bodies, Oliver feels lost and alone. So when Ian appears again, with another plastic cup in hand, Oliver takes it and gladly drinks it in along with Ian's heart-breakingly beautiful smile. He drinks the next, just to see the smile again. And the next, and the next, and another one just because the room has begun to spin around him in a slightly alarming way. He doesn't even protest when Ian takes hold of his hand and pulls him out the back door.

In the backyard, sitting against a large black oak tree, Ian strokes Oliver's hair gently as Oliver rests with his head pillowed in Ian's lap. Behind them the sounds of the party are far away and surreal against the backdrop of Oliver's pounding head. He lies feverishly in Ian's arms, as Ian murmurs co-mingled endearments and nightmares in his ear.

'Darling, lie still. Just a while love, and then it'll all be over, the pounding will be gone and then we will see the moon, see it shining just for us. Remember how you danced tonight?'

Oliver frets at this, rolling from side to side as a small groan escapes his lips. A girl, there was a tall girl, with glitter and sequins in her hair, just like Charity, but then she wanted him to touch her, all over, all the places he wasn't supposed to, and then he **did**, and all he could think about was what if it were really Charity? He begins to sweat and shiver then, and then he calls out her name.

'Charity! Charity!' he calls, only it is slurred and broken and he forgets the most important part. (I wish you were here.)

Ian frowns, and then his lip curls in disgust. Oliver is not allowed greater intervention, there will be no guardian angels tonight, _not ever again_, Ian thinks. Oliver has lost his right to redemption.

'Dearheart, you would not call out her name if you knew what I knew.' Ian whispers into his ear. 'I know things, all things, because of what I am (I am nothing, an end to everything) and what I know is this: she is as false as water. Have you seen her, darling, the way she holds his hand? Everyday- and sometimes she kisses his cheek and then he kisses her back, and holds her against him. Do you know what name she cries out in the night, lover? 'Cass!' she cries, 'Oh Cass, I cannot bear to live without you, you are my everything!''

Oliver shudders, and lets out one agonized shout of anguish before his eyes roll into the back of his head and the blackness overtakes him. Ian's smile outshines the moon as he gently kisses Oliver's fevered brow and runs his thumbs over Oliver's frigid palms.

**((author blurt))**: I don't own "as false as water," that's one by the great Shake 'n' Bake, in reference to the real Desdemona ( so I thought it was highly appropriate, along with being gorgeously poetic). Oh, and Oliver's blackout too. Freya : There are no more ways in which I feel I can properly express my undying gratitude to you for reading and reviewing this. Well, besides getting my act together and reading through all of your Shakey fic. Which will happen eventually, promise.


	8. This is EQUIVOCAL

part xv: another interlude

The sky is scarlet, saturated with evening, when Ian looks to it with slitted eyes and hands on guard against the fading sun and he does not know yet where he is going. Against the crimson backdrop he is stark white and gorgeous, this intense boy who wanders through a cement jungle of empty hallways and dusty classrooms (remember, until an hour before Lucifer fell, God thought him beautiful in heaven). But maybe his eyes are not as tough as he thinks, his fingers not as slender, his face not so striking. Maybe he is just a lost little boy eaten away inside by nightmares- shuddering with the effort to keep them locked up inside his brittle skin. Still, he laughs into the sky, sending his voice away with a flight of raucous crows._ Oliver!_ he cries, _your time is finally up! You are mine!_

And when every last bird has vanished from sight, he turns around at last and heads back the way he came.


End file.
